BIO5 Interim Director Fernando Martinez Named Regents Professor

Dr. Martinez, a professor of pediatrics at the UA, is one of the most highly regarded researchers in the world in the area of childhood lung diseases.
 

His groundbreaking research has had an impact on his field in numerous ways, including changing the nature of funding for epidemiologic research at the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute.
 

As noted by one colleague from Harvard University, "With regard to his relationship with others worldwide, he is without peer. He ranks as the elite practitioner in his field, and he is highly regarded as being a national treasure."

Martinez's visionary approaches have been well-documented in more than 160 original research papers, many in collaboration with investigators from all over the world, 20 book chapters, two books, and editorials in leading journals. He is frequently invited to give keynote presentations at national and international meetings, including the premier honor bestowed by the American Thoracic Society, the J. Burns Amberson Lecture at the international meeting in Toronto in May 2008.

Martinez's input has been sought at the highest levels regarding many study designs, including the large National Children's Study, or NCS, recently launched by the National Institutes of Health, which will be the definitive child health study of the 21st century.

The NCS, funded by a direct appropriation from Congress, will enroll 100,000 American mothers and mothers-to-be at several locations nationwide and will follow their children from before birth through young adulthood.

His research team was awarded $44 million to lead all NCS activities in Arizona.

Martinez also is an outstanding educator, investing major efforts in training medical students through pediatric clerkships, guest lecturing in a variety of courses, and research training of Pediatric Pulmonary Fellows and visiting postdoctoral scholars, many of whom are now in academic positions and have become highly respected researchers in their own right.

Recently, he created and chaired the Clinical Scholars Circle, an organization that promotes translational research among junior faculty in all of the colleges in the Arizona Health Sciences Center.